The topological susceptibility in finite temperature QCD and axion cosmology

We study the topological susceptibility in 2+1 flavor QCD above the chiral crossover transition temperature using Highly Improved Staggered Quark action and several lattice spacings, corresponding to temporal extent of the lattice, $N_\tau=6,8,10$ and $12$. We observe very distinct temperature dependences of the topological susceptibility in the ranges above and below $250$ MeV. While for temperatures above $250$ MeV, the dependence is found to be consistent with dilute instanton gas approximation, at lower temperatures the fall-off of topological susceptibility is milder. We discuss the consequence of our results for cosmology wherein we estimate the bounds on the axion decay constant and the oscillation temperature if indeed the QCD axion is a possible dark matter candidate.Comment: 19 pages and 7 figures; v2: A new figure, a few references and minor comments added; published versio

Managing large capital inflows: Taking stock of international experiences

Two waves of large capital inflows to emerging markets in the past 20 years appear to present a paradox: inflows can provide opportunities for faster growth and technology transfer, but they can also feed overheating pressures and unleash forces that push recipients into crisis. This paper examines over 90 episodes of large inflows asking whether ill-effects were common or severe, how they were or were not avoided, and what circumstances resulted in the most successful episodes. The findings point to the crucial role of counter-cyclical fiscal policy during inflow episodes. Other protective steps-particularly in the area of financial sector supervision and development-can be equally important

MEASURING CHANGE: PREDICTION OF EARLY ONSET SEPSIS

Sepsis occurs in a patient when an infection enters into the blood stream and spreads throughout the body causing a cascading response from the immune system. Sepsis is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in today’s hospitals. This is despite published and accepted guidelines for timely and appropriate interventions for septic patients. The largest barrier to applying these interventions is the early identification of septic patients. Early identification and treatment leads to better outcomes, shorter lengths of stay, and financial savings for healthcare institutions. In order to increase the lead time in recognizing patients trending towards septicemia a multivariate discrimination model was developed to create an early identification sepsis score to identify patients who are starting to show signs of sepsis. The model utilizes the patient’s heart rate, respiratory rate, systolic blood pressure, temperature, and oxygen saturation and the change from each of their respective baselines. Patient specific baselines are based on each patient’s previous vital sign measures leading up to the current set of measures. Theoretical assumptions are applied to this sepsis score to investigate distributional properties of the measure for applicable inferences. Finally, a new approximation to the degrees of freedom of a t-distribution, , is proposed. This new approximation is investigated and compared to the Satterthwaite approximation

Preservation process modelling (including a review of semantic process modelling and workflow languages)

This report describes in a formalised way a comprehensive set of processes for digital preservation. These processes are drawn from a series of relevant projects and standards from the preservation community, including OAIS, TRAC, PLANETS and others. The result is intended to be used as a generic baseline that those interested in audiovisual preservation can refer to, extract and customise processes in order to fit with their specific AV preservation needs

SOCIAL INFLUENCES ON REPRODUCTION IN PINE VOLES

The presence of large populations of pine voles in apple orchards suggests that in the field reproduction of these pests has few constraints. Yet, evidence collected from our colony at Union College indicates that in the laboratory reproduction is not at random but instead is socially restrained and predictable. Unless these findings are artifacts of laboratory life, they may help explain some of the data collected in the field. Horsfall (1963) trapped voles every month of the year from an orchard near Cloverdale, VA. Since he found pregnant females in all collections, he concluded that reproduction occurred throughout the year with a peak in the summer months. On the other hand, Valentine and Kirkpatrick(1970) found pregnant females in only seven months of the year in orchards near Danville, VA. The conflict in data has not been resolved and may be a result of social factors that could not be determined in the field. In the laboratory, we found that reproduction in pine voles is influenced by a variety of social conditions

The Connection: Strategies for Creating and Operating 501(c)(3)s, 501(c)(4)s, and Political Organizations

Sections discuss the different types of exempt organizations and what they can do, lobbying and political activities, establishment and operation, rules governing activities of political organizations, separate segregated funds (SSFs), and establishing Super PACs. Appendix includes a model grant agreement from 501(c)(3) to 501(c)(4)